Create Virtual Machine in Hyper-V on Windows Server 2012

With the rising usage of data centers all over the world, organizations rely on virtualization technique for increased IT efficiency, flexibility, and scalability. The virtualization solutions help in reducing the overall costs including power bills, maintenance fees and datacenter office space and fees by consolidating more workloads on fewer servers. The blog will be discussing about the Hyper-V platform that can create virtualized computing environment where several virtual machines can be created and managed individually.

Virtualization

Virtualization can be defined as the creation of virtual version of a device, resource, such as server, network, storage, or operating system. The main aim of virtualization is to manage the workload by transforming traditional computing to make it more scalable. Using Operating-system virtualization, we can run multiple operating systems on a single piece of hardware. When a different OS is operating on top of the primary OS using virtualization, then it is referred to as virtual machine.

Benefits of Virtualization

Some of the major benefits of switching to virtualization technology are as follows:

- Reduced Capital and Operating Cost: Having less number of physical servers can save our money on the power bills, maintenance fees and data-center office space and fees.

- Business Continuity & disaster recovery: Changes in one server can be made without affecting others sharing the same hardware. Maintenance can be done in production environment without affecting business or causing disruptions

- Isolating Applications: With virtualization, we can put applications on dedicated Operating Systems on a virtual server. Isolating applications in their own OS allows developers to deploy agile IT services.

- Speedy Installations: Virtual devices enable fast installations of new server applications or router because no equipment needs to be ordered, delivered or set up. Instead, we need to configure a new virtual machine or router using virtual management tool.

Virtualization with Hyper-V

Hyper-V is a server hypervisor which enables you to run multiple operating system on a single machine and isolate them from each other. It is a Windows Server feature that can be installed whenever a server administrator decides to do so. Microsoft has also launched a separate product called Microsoft Hyper-V Server, which is a standalone or short version of Windows Server with all the parts irrelevant to virtualization removed. Since it has less components, server requires less maintenance time.

The Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2012 makes it possible to create a virtualized-server environment where multiple virtual machines can be created and managed. Hyper-V stores its virtual machine in a file with .vhd extension and these virtual hard disk are saved on a physical disk.

Install Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012

Steps for installing the Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 Data Center are as follows:

Open Server Manager then go to Add roles and features.

To install Hyper-V role on the server, select Hyper-V checkbox as shown below. Click Next to proceed.

The next step is to create virtual switches so that virtual machines get attached to them.

In this step, you can browse location for virtual hard disk files and virtual machine configuration file.

Select Install to install roles, role services, or features of Hyper-V role.

Start Virtual Machine

Connect Virtual Machine

Now VM is in running state. To connect it to the Hyper-V, right click on VM and select connect.

Virtual machine having its own operating system will be open in new Window as shown below.

Conclusion

Virtualization has taken the computing environment to a new level with its benefits. Hyper-V has advantages like hardware-resource savings, less space requirements, energy cost savings, flexibility, etc. Hyper-V technology introduced by Microsoft allows several multiple VMs to be created and managed efficiently. The release of standalone version of Hyper-V server makes it more attractive as only the relevant components of virtualization are used and GUI is made as small as possible to reduce the maintenance time. The blog explains the importance of virtualization, install Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012, create and run Virtual Machine using Hyper-V.